Baffling basement biffies

I’m not often surprised anymore by what I’ll encounter when asked to update a basement bathroom. However, a recent flooring upgrade did catch me off-guard slightly.

Basement bathrooms present hurdles because their layouts are usually predetermined by the rough plumbing set within the concrete floor at the time the house was originally built. And short of spending a fortune to rearrange the sub-concrete services, adapting an upgrade to the existing layout quickly minimizes options.

This particular bathroom had been upgraded prior to the current homeowners’ purchase of the house. And although it remained functional, there were a few aspects leaving much to be desired, primarily the carpeted flooring. Although I understand the intention to keep a basement bathroom floor warm to the feet, wall-to-wall carpet does not belong in a bathroom, for what seem to me obvious reasons. No matter, the carpet was now coming out and new vinyl-plank flooring was to be installed.

Beyond the carpet, the bathroom floor in its entirety had been built up, with a sort of platform throughout for one reason or another. I suspect this could have also been to buffer the coldness of the concrete below from the space above, or maybe there were a few water leaks along the floor that are concealed by the framework. The homeowners decided to keep the platform and simply re-sheathe it with vinyl once the carpet and underlayment were removed.

Open the door on a new look

Sometimes a main-floor update can be as simple as a fresh coat of paint on the walls. Other times, it may take a little more effort to create the desired look. An interior door upgrade can often change an entire esthetic — without hitting the wallet so hard.

However, swapping out old interior doors for new can be tricky, unless you go a little further, and replace the door jambs as well.

Homeowners often make the mistake of assuming installing new doors will be as simple as removing the old from their hinges and fastening on the new. Unfortunately, not all doors are tooled in the same locations. As such, this can affect hinge placement and striker locations — and if these don’t line up with the new doors, things can get ugly in a hurry.

Although it is possible to source new doors that happen to meet the location specifications of the existing hinges on the jamb, the hinges themselves may be of a different size and shape. As such, it may be best to then purchase doors slabs, un-tooled interior doors that can be fitted on site.

Great ideas for the gardeners on your list

Just as gardening leads to endless topics to discuss or dream about, there is no shortage of useful, creative and pleasurable gift ideas for gardeners.

Daylilies star in documentary

If filmmaking is a visual art form and nature is a powerful inspiration for art, then why aren’t there more films about plants and the people who are passionate about them?

PlantPop is one of those rarest of things — a horticultural film studio that seeks out interesting stories about plants and how they inspire and improve people’s lives. PlantPop, based in Suffolk, Va., is the brainchild of Arthur Parkerson who owns Lancaster Farms, a major plant producer in Virginia.

In the past 11 years, PlantPop has produced over 400 short documentary films that explore the relationship between people and plants. Many of the films are under 10 minutes in length, some are 30 minutes long.

Daylily is PlantPop’s first feature-length documentary film (72 minutes in length). Directed by Maria Morris, this refreshingly beautiful and informative film captures the stories of growers, gardeners, breeders and plant enthusiasts who share a common love for daylilies.

Like a puzzle, fireplace surround comes together piece by piece

Amidst a very hectic end-of-year work schedule, I was able to eke out a few hours over a couple of days to address a lingering upgrade in my very own step-down dining room, the main level of the addition to the house completed in 2018.

From the outset, the gap between the windows on the far wall had been fitted with an early-generation, wall-mount electric fireplace. Unfortunately, the brand did not offer many features, and always seemed bulky. So the space was about to change, for the better.

In recent years, electric wall-mount fireplaces have come a long way. Not only has pricing come way down and the range of sizes expanded, but the plethora of options on newer brands and models put my old bulky beast to shame. Moreover, the old fireplace had been mounted directly to the wall, without being encased (the vent for the heating on this particular unit pointed upward, ruling out an inset application). As such, we lived with it simply mounted to the wall as a stand-alone for the years that ensued after completion of the addition.

The upgrade design would feature a 66-inch-high build-out structure decorated in cultured stone, capped with a stained wooden mantle and a slightly bigger hearth below. After careful measurements, I decided to frame the main structure to a finished width (including drywall) of 66 inches, at a four-inch depth. The height of the hearth would match the five-inch height of the existing baseboards throughout, with a one-and-a-quarter-inch-high quartz slab at 74-inches wide and eight-inches deep, to serve as the hearth’s top.

While renovating on top of irregularly built substructures can frustrate, patience pays off

A good number of my recent job sites have involved a flooring upgrade, at least to some degree.

Working at a house last month, the first phase of several separate renovations was just that — the renewal of the existing kitchen flooring.

Apparently, during the main kitchen renovation completed years ago (and before my involvement), a glue-down style of vinyl flooring had been selected and over time, the sections separated, revealing inconsistent gaps at every seam. The homeowner made it very clear this could no longer be tolerated.

As such, click-style vinyl planking with underpadding was selected to rejuvenate the look of the kitchen, and would also extend towards the back-door entrance and continue along the stairs to the basement. Although the square footage of flooring was minimal, the intricacies involved with such tasks would prove to be quite challenging.

Indoor herb gardens add savoury touches to recipes, elicit fond memories

‘Welcome to our living aromatherapy space,” said Dave Hanson on my visit last week to Sage Garden Greenhouses.

Every customer who walks through the door of the greenhouses located at 3410 St. Mary’s Rd. is greeted by the different aromas of various exotic plants. “I just see every single day how people respond with joy, sometimes nostalgia, sometimes, with a sort of transporting feeling that takes them back to another place in time or reminds them of someone,” said Hanson.

“Many plants, herbs and flowers have this incredible sensory impact in terms of the aroma. Rosemary, for example, is very much associated with memory. It’s supposed to bring you calming energy and a greater capacity to learn. Giving the leaves a little scratch and sniff makes you feel energized — not hyper, as though you had too much coffee, but grounded and calmer. It’s very powerful and gentle at the same time.”

Brushing or crushing the fragrant leaves of an herb infuses the air with a specific essence depending on its place of origin. “I’ve been on a bit of a mission, you could say, to collect different cultivars of plants that are regional from around the world. Sometimes it’s a certain kind of rosemary that grows in a region of Italy or a type of jasmine from a region of India or a thyme that has much more aromatic quality than a standard variety. They’re not all the same — it has to do with the aromatic oils,” said Hanson.

Differing approaches can solve subfloor idiosyncrasies

The decision to upgrade flooring often gives rise to related, but unexpected quandaries that need to be resolved once work gets under way.

At a recent job site, the main floor consisted of two types of adjacent floor finishings: carpet throughout the main living and sitting rooms, and linoleum throughout the kitchen and hallway that leads to two bedrooms. Removal of the carpeting prompted a big decision that would greatly affect the costs and overall approach of the flooring project.

Typically, carpeting is installed atop underlayment that itself can be quite thick. As such, different flooring types adjacent to it may not meet the same elevation as the carpeting, once in place. To remedy the height anomaly, secondary subflooring is usually laid atop the main subfloor to equalize flooring elevation throughout.

In this case, half-inch secondary subflooring was added throughout the kitchen and hallway to ensure the linoleum met the height of the carpet at both entry points into the main living room. Once the carpet was removed, this revealed the lip of the secondary subfloor when transitioning from the living room into either the kitchen or hallway.

Fabulous foliage adds flair to gardens, indoor décor

Welcome to the Jungle is a new and exciting line of foliage plants from Dummen Orange.

For consumers encountering this amazing collection for the first time during the winter months, their first thought might be of the many new possibilities for raising the bar in their indoor gardens.

Beyond a doubt, these new foliage varieties offering a wide range of leaf sizes, shapes, forms and colour options will do just that.

But Welcome to the Jungle is so much more. Any one of the dozens of varieties has a story to tell and can be integrated with your home décor or added to your outdoor containers and hanging baskets.

Author goes far and wide on quest to document all plants native to Manitoba

When Diana Bizecki Robson was growing up in Saskatoon during the 1970s, she enjoyed riding her bike to parks and riverbanks where she spent hours studying the diversity of wild plants and their pollinators.

After deciding to become a biologist, Bizecki Robson worked for a few years as an environmental consultant which allowed her to conduct plant surveys. But it was when the opportunity to work at the Manitoba Museum came along — in October 2003 — that she could finally pursue the type of field work and research she loves.

Today, Bizecki Robson is the curator of botany at the Manitoba Museum. She oversees a herbarium which holds over 50,000 specimens.

“One of the things I discovered as part of a collection assessment project that I did when I first got here was that the museum did not have a specimen of every single species of plant or fungus or lichen (from this province) in its collection,” said Bizecki Robson.

Sauna on deck: porch-revamp remnants help unify outdoor esthetic

As attractive as this sauna appears, I must admit that I did not build it — the homeowners purchased a kit from Sauna Central, and installers from that company erected the sauna on site, shortly after it was delivered. Nonetheless, the roughly 1,200-pound sauna required a sturdy platform upon which it could be placed, and that’s where I came in.

Having given their front porch a complete makeover early this summer, the homeowners decided to introduce a sauna on the property. After comprehensive research, they elected to purchase a small two-person model that could be built on site next to the front-porch stairs.

Rather than erecting the sauna structure on the existing patio stones adjacent to the front steps, it was decided the sauna was better suited recessed behind the stairway. This mandated the introduction of a proper rigid platform, able to support the structure’s weight.

After a brief chat with the homeowner, and based on recommendations from the supplier regarding the size of the sauna, a minimum 72-by-72-inch platform was required. Further discussion revealed that a 12-inch front edge could serve as a step to the front access of the sauna.

Hostas will repay patience

Hostas are the ideal perennial for shade.

Hardy and reliable, they are the workhorses of the shade garden. They make great fillers when you don’t know what else to plant.

Scratch that! Because while there is truth in all of the above, hostas are so much more than a utilitarian plant. The power of the hosta lies not only in the number of species and several thousand named cultivars which offer sumptuous foliage and a dazzling array of shapes, colours, patterns and textures. Rather, this iconic perennial’s potential lies in how it is displayed in the garden. Grouping together different cultivars of hostas which have distinctive forms and foliage is key to creating a successful, esthetically pleasing display.

Rhona Klippenstein has it nailed. So captivating is her display of diverse hosta varieties that it caught my eye from a distant roadway on a visit to Altona. I couldn’t resist getting a closer look.

Serendipitous circuitry smooths way for speedier door replacement project

When the health circumstances and mobility of a homeowner changed dramatically, the urgency to address certain aspects within their home compelled me to make the necessary time despite an already hectic work calendar.

Having already remodelled the kitchen and introduced new vinyl flooring throughout the house, I was quite intimate with the layout. The main-floor bathroom door was too narrow to allow wheelchair access, and it would need to be widened considerably to accommodate.

During the initial planning stages prior to introducing a wider door along an interior wall, it was crucial to establish whether the door is situated on a supporting wall. If that was the case, the rough existing rough opening would have been reinforced with a lintel above, within the framing that rests atop a jack stud on either side, laminated to a king stud.

This type of framework would then offset the weight along the top of the door opening along the studs on either side. And as you can imagine, widening such an opening would involve a longer lintel, as well as repositioning the existing jack and king studs on either side.

Outdoor reno rejuvenates more than just an old porch

As summer begins to slip away every year, lingering outdoor jobs become a race against time.

While keeping a close eye on impending forecasts, a day was chosen to replace the top deck boards along the lower tier of the front porch at my clients’ boat-access-only cottage location. Although the early morning seemed rather frigid, the day evolved into a gloriously calm and mild autumn afternoon — perfect outdoor building weather.

Much like the upper tier that had been addressed a few years prior and several other projects later, the process of removing the old two-by-six tops would be done systematically. As boards were removed, new two-by-six top-decking was installed.

Typically, I prefer to complete all demolition and prep before initiating installation. However, it was much easier here to demo and install as I went along, primarily because the old deck surface gave me easy access to lay out and secure the new boards.

New, improved hydrangeas perfect pick for space-saving pots

Container gardening is more popular than ever.

Gardeners are looking to expand their opportunities for growing unique plants without taking up lots of space. More gardeners are discovering that growing perennials and shrubs in containers opens the door to a longer season of continuous colour, and the chance to grow a wider range of exciting new varieties.

One of the top plant choices for container gardens in 2026 will be hydrangea. “Hydrangeas continue to be one of the best-selling shrubs across North America,” says Ryan McEnaney, marketing and communications manager for Bailey Nurseries, a fifth-generation, family-owned wholesale nursery headquartered in St. Paul, Minn.

“The home gardener’s excitement for hydrangeas is palpable for those of us who work behind the scenes to bring new hydrangeas to market,” says McEnaney. “Growing hydrangeas in decorative pots provides the perfect opportunity for enhancing patios, porches and decks — spaces where maybe gardeners didn’t think they could grow a hydrangea.”